CIHR Reviewers' Guide for Canada Graduate Research Scholarship - Doctoral (CGRS D) Program

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Peer Review at CIHR
• Summary of the Peer Review Process
• Step-by-Step Instructions
  • Step 1: Read the pertinent documentation
  • Step 2: Identify conflicts of interests
  • Step 3: Conduct in-depth review of assigned applications
  • Step 4: Submit reviews and ratings on ResearchNet
  • Step 5: Be prepared for a re-review
• Ranking of applications
• Feedback
• Appendix A – Evaluation criteria
• Appendix B – Reviewer Worksheet

Introduction

On behalf of CIHR, we would like to thank the reviewers for agreeing to serve as peer review committee members. The success of the peer review process is made possible by dedicated people like you who generously give their time and expertise. Your efforts are greatly appreciated by CIHR and the scientific community.

The purpose of this document is to provide information on the policies, procedures and process for the peer review of applications submitted to the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship - Doctoral (CGRS D) program.

Peer Review at CIHR

Information on CIHR's objectives, governance and policies, an outline of the roles and responsibilities of peer review committee members, and the policies, principles and procedures for peer review of applications can be found in the CIHR Peer Review Guide for Training and Salary Awards. It is important that reviewers become familiar with this document, as well as the present document, before starting their reviews.

Summary of the Peer Review Process

As part of your engagement in peer review at CIHR, we ask that you take a moment to complete or update your Reviewer Profile on ResearchNet. The Reviewer Profile has been developed as a tool to build and support reviewer expertise management.

At this time, we ask that you please login to ResearchNet and select "My Reviewer Profile" from the left-hand navigation bar to create or update your Profile. When completing your Reviewer Profile, in the Reviewer Type section under the Researcher group please select "Other" and enter "Post Doctoral Fellow". Please only complete the sections that are most applicable to you based on your experience as well as your ability and willingness to review. For additional information on how to proceed, please view a quick learning module entitled Completing your Reviewer Profile. The Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Doctoral (CGRS D) program uses an individual structured review process, using the online ResearchNet platform. The review process is completed in one stage: an individual review and rating of an assigned set of applications (i.e. there is no committee meeting). All eligible applications will be assigned to two (2) reviewers.

There are two (2) peer review committees. Each application will be assigned to the committee with the scientific area that has been chosen by the applicant, which most closely aligns with the applicant's proposed research activities.

Reviewers are asked to follow the step-by-step instructions below to successfully complete all peer review tasks:

• Step 1: Read the pertinent documentation
• Step 2: Identify conflicts of interests
• Step 3: Conduct in-depth review of assigned applications
• Step 4: Submit reviews and ratings on ResearchNet
• Step 5: Be prepared for a re-review

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Read the pertinent documentation

The peer review process for this funding opportunity is described in detail in this document. It is essential to read the document and be familiar with it. It is also important to complete or update your Reviewer Profile on ResearchNet, complete the Reviewing for the Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral (CGRS D) Program elearning module and read the following:

• the CIHR Peer Review Guide for Training and Salary Awards
• the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship - Doctoral (CGRS D) program Funding Opportunity

Step 2: Identify conflicts of interests

To identify conflicts of interests on the assigned set of applications, reviewers must:

• Log into ResearchNet.
• On the home page, click on the link of their assigned committee to open the main task list.
• Complete the task Review Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Guidelines (once completed, it will "open" the other tasks).
• Open the Manage Conflicts task.
• For each assigned application, use the information provided to indicate if you are able to review or if there is a conflict. If there is a conflict, CIHR will reassign the application to another reviewer.

Notes:

1. CIHR assigns the CGRS D applications to the two peer review committees based on the scientific area identified by the applicant and not by the specific expertise of reviewers, which explains why you may be assigned applications that are not necessarily within your area of expertise. The reviewers are asked to assess applications from a generalist perspective and should not declare conflicts because applications are outside their area of expertise. Although you may not be familiar with the field, we ask that each reviewer complete their reviews from the point of view of a generalist.
2. As other reviewers within your committee will also declare conflicts, there is a likelihood that you will receive additional application assignments. The calibration of workloads will be maintained to ensure a fair peer review process.

Step 3: Conduct in-depth review of assigned applications

Once conflicts have been identified, the full content of the remaining assigned applications will be available under the task "Conduct Reviews". Reviewers should then follow the steps below.

3.1 Review the selection criteria

Reviewers should first become familiar with the selection criteria found at the end of this document in Appendix A. This appendix provides an interpretation of each criterion and identifies which elements of the application to review for that criterion.

CIHR is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which recognizes that scholarly outputs include a broad range of contributions and are not limited to published journal articles. When assessing applications, reviewers should consider:

• A range of contributions (e.g., research publications, reports, books, guidelines, datasets, code, tools, training and mentorship, volunteerism, community engagement, standards, software and commercialized products) and impacts (e.g., influence on policy and practice, influence on direction of thought, use of research results by stakeholders, health outcomes, societal outcomes, and distinctions-based, meaningful and culturally safe health research); and
• The context of the applicant (e.g., health problems, family responsibilities, disabilities, trauma and/or loss, pandemic impact, career stage, area(s) of research, experiential knowledge and diverse career paths) and how it may have impacted the applicant's performance (see range of contributions). Please see specific notes about research area and career stage:
  • Reviewers should consider the research area/discipline of the applicant when reviewing an application, for example, publication productivity can vary when comparing a biomedical researcher, a clinician or a social scientist.
  • Reviewers should consider the career stage of the applicants to better assess and calibrate their set of applications. Reviewers are asked to think critically about whether the training position for which an individual is applying for funding will have the desired career benefits and impact compared to other applicants.

Reviewers should guard against placing too much value on the number of contributions – the focus must be on the impact and significance of the contributions. Reviewers should not use journal-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor as surrogate measures of quality and/or excellence as they introduce bias into the review process. Citation rates vary between disciplines and contexts; members must be mindful of this when considering them as part of their evaluation. Metrics such as number of publications and citations, and size and number of grants/awards should not be used in isolation to assess the applicant's achievements, contributions, and activities.

As stated in DORA, the "scientific content of a paper is much more important than publication metrics or the identity of the journal in which it was published". Applicants are instructed to elaborate and comment on their role, positive impact and importance of their research contributions.

3.2 Read the assigned applications

Reviewers should read all of their assigned applications in detail before rating any of them and take notes to capture their impressions. The Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Doctoral (CGRS D) Program Reviewer Worksheet in Appendix B provides a template that they may wish to use. This worksheet is for reviewers' own personal use and will not be filed with CIHR.

Reviewers should review each application with a generalist's perspective and assess the overall quality of the application including the applicant's career goals, profile and expectations as well as the proposed research, using the appropriate selection criteria. It is important to note that many applicants will likely be conducting research outside of the reviewer's research specialty.

It is important that reviewers are aware of the importance of the integration of sex and gender in research proposals and assess their appropriateness in their assigned set of application. To learn more about Sex and Gender considerations in Research, reviewers are encouraged to complete these training modules:

• Introduction to Sex and Gender Considerations in Basic Science
• Introduction to Sex and Gender Considerations in Clinical and Epidemiological Research
• Assessing Sex and Gender Integration in Peer Review

When evaluating applications that involve First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples, reviewers are strongly encouraged to review the following training module and literature:

• Background context on Indigenous Health Research
• Ethics of Health Research Involving First Nations, Inuit and Métis People
• First Nations: The OCAP® principles, widely known and accepted were developed by the First Nations Information Governance Centre
• Inuit: Inuit Nunangat Policy and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami's (ITK)'s National Inuit Strategy on Research (NISR) [ PDF (1.18 MB) - external link ] outlines data governance principles.
• Métis: principles guiding ethical research with Metis communities [ PDF (548 KB) - external link ]
• Visions for Distinctions-based Indigenous Health Legislation: Executive
• SSHRC Guidelines for the Merit Review of Indigenous Research

As the agencies have signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), a global initiative whose purpose is to support the development and promotion of best practices in the assessment of scholarly research. DORA recognizes the need to improve the ways in which research is evaluated, beyond widely used journal-based metrics. As signatories of DORA, CIHR recognize and value a broad range of contributions and emphasize their quality and impact. Reviewers are strongly encouraged to review the list of resources available to them.

To ensure that all applications are evaluated equally, reviewers are asked to base their evaluation only on the content of the application and not to complete any additional research (e.g. publications via PubMed, etc.).

The use of AI in peer review constitutes a breach of confidentiality when reviewers fail to safeguard applicant materials (CIHR Policy).

3.3 Learning for participants in peer review

CIHR offers a number of learning modules to help you gain in-depth knowledge about our programs, processes and tools. These modules are intended to ensure that all participants in the peer review process have the same base knowledge of the processes and policies in order to conduct effective and fair peer review.

Addressing bias

As reviewers read the applications, they should be aware of and take actions to mitigate against bias related to gender, ethnicity, disability, Indigenous identity and Indigenous ways of knowing, institution size, region, age, language (including official language and minority communities bias) and interdisciplinary approaches to research. For example, it is important to be aware that:

• Career interruptions for childbearing and family responsibilities can influence opportunity for knowledge production, publications and related variables;
• Different disciplines, environments and diverse career paths offer different opportunities for research contributions (e.g., publications, influence on policy and practice, patents, knowledge mobilization activities, etc.);
• The reputation of institutions should not affect the reviewer's view of applicants or their research training environment;
• It is important to take steps to mitigate bias in reviewers' thought process about difference in culture (e.g. Indigenous Peoples of Canada);
• Recognize Indigenous identity in a reconciliation, nation-to-nation framework; and,
• A point should be made of respecting Canada's linguistic duality by recognizing the value of research in French and the value of research in Francophone minority communities.

To learn more about bias in peer review, reviewers must complete the related learning module.

Sex and Gender in Health Research

Reviewers must complete one of the three Sex and Gender in Health Research online modules self-selected by each reviewer to align with their area of expertise:

• Introduction to Sex and Gender Considerations in Basic Science
• Introduction to Sex and Gender Considerations in Clinical and Epidemiological Research
• Assessing Sex and Gender Integration in Peer Review

3.4 Rate the assigned applications

Reviewers are asked to rate their assigned applications against each of the selection criteria described in Appendix A, using CIHR's traditional rating scale (below). It is particularly important that the full scale be used.

Applications with an overall weighted score below 3.5 are not eligible for CIHR funding, including those from partnerships/priority announcement opportunities.

3.5 Provide a written assessment for each assigned application

Reviewers are strongly encouraged to provide a concisely written assessment (limited to 4000 characters) for each assigned application that supports their ratings. The written reviews will provide constructive advice to applicants to assist them in improving the quality and efficiency of the proposed training.

When providing comments, reviewers should focus on the strengths and weaknesses for each evaluation criterion:

• Keep it simple;
• Use familiar descriptors, such as those from the CIHR rating scale that align with your rating;
• Include justification, context and an explanation of your comments, if applicable, for each topic introduced;
• Respect DORA principles by considering a range of contributions and impacts and avoiding the use of journal-based metrics such as Journal Impact Factors as surrogate measures of quality. Do not use metrics such as number of publications and citations, and size and number of grants or awards in isolation to assess the applicant – instead, balance quantitative metrics with qualitative parts of the proposal;
• Be clear and concise;
• While brevity is acceptable (e.g. using bullets), express complete thoughts and ensure the length is sufficient enough to inform the reader;
• Use objective and non-inflammatory language – avoid any biased language or approach;
• Carefully avoid language that might be construed as sarcastic, flippant, arrogant or inappropriate in any way.
• When referring to the applicant use gender neutral pronouns or phrases. For example, use "they" or "the applicant," rather than "he" or "she".

The applicant will receive the review as it is submitted by the reviewer. For this reason, reviewers are to refrain from inserting scores in the written comments and should not identify themselves in order to ensure the confidentiality of the review process.

For additional guidance on conducting high quality reviews please refer to CIHR's Review Quality Expectations, as well as the Conducting Quality Reviews learning module.

3.6 Flag issues for CIHR's attention

Any concerns regarding the application, eligibility, ethics, human stem cells, etc. should be reported to CIHR staff immediately for follow-up and should not be noted in the written comments unless they impact the scientific quality of the application.

For the full list of potential issues, please refer to the CIHR Peer Review Guide for Training and Salary Awards.

Similarly, if you believe there may be a misrepresentation of information in an application or a breach of Agency policy, please inform us immediately so we can determine whether the issue needs to be addressed through the responsible conduct of research (RCR) process. For a list of potential breaches, please refer to the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research.

Step 4: Submit written reviews and ratings on ResearchNet

For security reasons, ResearchNet times-out rather frequently, and CIHR is unable to retrieve any lost information. Therefore, reviewers should save their work often so that it is not lost. Alternatively, reviewers can write their comments offline in a Word document and then copy and paste the text directly into the appropriate text box on ResearchNet when ready.

Also, as the reviewers perform their evaluation, the reviews can be saved as drafts by selecting "Save draft copy" on ResearchNet. This allows reviewers to make changes at a later time. However, in order to submit the written reviews and ratings to CIHR, reviewers must select "Submit Final Review". Afterwards, no modification will be possible.

It is important for reviewers to respect the deadline provided by submitting the reviews and scores in ResearchNet by the date specified via correspondence with CIHR staff. Delays in the peer review process will jeopardize CIHR's ability to release decisions to applicants by the published date. If, at any point in the process, a reviewer determines that they may not be able to submit their reviews on or before the deadline, they must contact CIHR staff as soon as possible.

Step 5: Be prepared for a re-review

Once all the overall weighted scores are submitted, CIHR will perform a discrepancy review by calculating the final rating for each application. CIHR will then identify applications which are at risk of an unfair decision because of a wide gap between the two reviewers' overall scores. In such cases, CIHR will ask both reviewers to reconsider their initial assessment and resubmit scores. To do so, they will be asked to get in contact with each other to discuss the application. This second review usually reduces the gap between overall scores to an acceptable size. If the discrepancy persists, CIHR will obtain a third review (unless the persisting discrepancy is found to have no impact on the overall top-ranked applications).

For this purpose, it is recommended that reviewers keep their working notes on file up until a few weeks after the competition results have been announced. Please then delete and/or destroy any copies of the applications that you have printed, downloaded, or saved.

Please view the Guide on Handling Documents Used in Peer Review for instructions on the proper handling of peer review documents.

Ranking of applications

Upon completion of the peer review process, CIHR will generate a ranking list for the applications. Ties between overall scores are often found within these competition-ranking lists. CIHR has a process in place should the number of ties found in the fundable range exceed the overall budget allocated for the competition. The ties are broken by prioritizing applications based on overall scores received for specific evaluation criteria, in the following order of priority: Relevant experience and achievements obtained within and beyond academia followed by Research and Potential.

Feedback

An important component of the peer review process is the review of the committee's effectiveness and feedback on policy issues that may have arisen during the process. This feedback provides an opportunity for staff to address any concerns from committee members and for staff to record comments on the peer review process as part of CIHR's ongoing efforts to maintain an effective and high-quality peer review system.

Since there is no face-to-face or teleconference meetings, reviewers' feedback should be communicated to the committee coordinator by email.

Appendix A – Evaluation criteria

The following criteria are to be used for evaluating applications:

Appendix B – Reviewer Worksheet

The following table is meant to guide reviewers in the evaluation of the application. It is strictly for their working notes and will not be filed with CIHR.

Applicant Name:

Application #:

Date modified:

2025-04-29